e-Bulletin September 2005

Welcome to Partners IN Salford's second e-mail newsletter.

This e-mail newsletter will be produced quarterly as a supplement to the Bulletin, Partners IN Salford's paper newsletter. Sign up to receive the paper newsletter by contacting us.

Content for the Bulletin
The deadline for contributions for the next Bulletin is Friday 9th September. Please e-mail any news items, good practice examples, success stories, staff news or event details to the editor

A date for your diaries...We will be launching the new Community Plan for Salford on 14th December 2005 at Digital World, so please keep this date free

What do you think of www.partnersinsalford.org?
We want to know what you think of the Partners IN Salford website! What's good, what's bad, what's helpful or what's missing, please click on this link to tell us what you think in our online survey. The survey is completely anonymous and will be used to ensure that the website is developed to meet the needs of all partners.

Online minutes
At the Partners IN Salford board meeting in July, partners discussed, amongst other subjects, developments in Central Salford, the LSP annual review meeting with Government Office North West, the review of the Community Plan and future plans for the Social Inclusion theme.
As of this meeting, we also now put the meeting papers and agenda on our website prior to the meeting, rather than e-mailing them out. You can access the papers at www.partnersinsalford.org/our_meetings around a fortnight before each Board meeting.
Click on the below links to read the minutes of the following meetings:
- LSP Board, July 2005
- Co-ordination Group, June 2005 and August 2005. (Read the co-ordination group papers for August here)

Consultation library and future consultation calendar
Partners IN Salford's Good Practice in Community Involvement project has now launched two additional resources on its website to ensure that community consultation in the city is done as effectively as possible. The consultation library gives details of consultations done to date in the city, and the future calendar gives details of forthcoming work. The idea is that information and findings can be shared and organisations can work jointly to avoid over-consulting local people (As well as saving the organisations saving themselves time and resources)

Both the calendar and the library are fully searchable by area, theme, format or people consulted. There's limited data at the moment, but this will increase as partners share information.

You can add consultation results to the library, or planned consultation to the calendar by inputting some details into a very straightforward online form.
Take a look - www.partnersinsalford.org/communityinvolvement/consultationfindings.htm

GCSE success in Salford!
Salford pupils are celebrating top marks in this year's GCSEs. A phenomenal 8% increase in those who achieved five or more A*-C grades sees Salford as the most improved area in Greater Manchester. As well as success at GCSE level, Salford is the second most improved of 150 local education authorities at Key Stage 2 level.

Neighbourhood Renewal Fund (NRF)
Salford has been allocated £9.3 million each for 2006/07 and 2007/08. This is the same amount of money as the city was allocated this year (2005/06) and is part of a total pot of £1.05 billion that is given to the 80 most deprived local authority areas. A strategy for allocation will be considered at the October Partners IN Salford board meeting.

We now have the external consultants' full evaluation report of the impact and future focus of NRF in Salford, and this will soon be made available on our website. The recommendations in the report will also be considered at October's Board meeting.

New partnerships launched
Construction Partnership
The Salford Construction Partnership was launched on 30th June with unemployed local people who have completed a six-week construction course taking centre stage at the launch event. Read more here

Food and Physical Activity Partnership
The newly formed Food and Physical Activity Partnership will report to the Healthy City Forum. Its aims are to bring together stakeholders to encourage physical activity, improve nutrition and reduce health inequalities in Salford. Read the report of the launch day here

More good news...
Continuing on a physical activity note, there was recent good news about Salford's performance against the Local Public Service Agreement 1 target. In 2002, participation rates in sport in Salford secondary schools were lower than the national average for all sports apart from rugby. By contrast, participation rates in 2005 exceed the 2002 national average. The figures at national level in 2005 point to static trends, so not only has Salford successfully narrowed the gap, but it has forged ahead of national secondary school figures!

Buy IN Salford promotional items
There is now a range of branded IN Salford merchandise that any partners can order for events, meetings and conferences. Available items include everything from pens and pencils to ties and umbrellas!
The order form can be found here on the Partners IN Salford website, under 'useful resources - documents'. You simply need to complete the form, and send it, together with invoice and delivery details to karen.robinson@salford.gov.uk

A new member of the team
The Partners IN Salford support team welcomed a new member of staff in July. Elaine Eaves will be with us for three months to research the strategic implications in Salford of the introduction of the new Local Area Agreements, and also to help with the Community Plan review.

Elaine has worked in the education field for 27 years, specialising in those at risk of exclusion, and for the last three years was partnership manager for Preston's educational partnership. Elaine was also funded to tour British cities to look at good practice in regeneration and has been a regular speaker at conferences. In 2003, Elaine was selected to meet Government advisors to discuss the educational and training needs of unemployed people in Preston.

Elaine is passionate about widening participation and lifelong learning. She is a parish councillor and lives in a small village on the Fylde coast with her husband and twin daughters.

Contact Elaine - Elaine.eaves@salford.gov.uk, 0161 736 2398

Community Plan
The second draft of Salford's new Community Plan will be on www.partnersinsalford.org as of 19th September for your comments.

The LSP review
Christina Ashworth, a neighbourhood renewal advisor, is currently reviewing Partners IN Salford to ensure that we will be ready to lead the development of Salford's Local Area Agreement. Over the last few weeks, Christina has been conducting interviews with a wide range of people involved in the partnership and will report her findings to the Board in October.

Coming up
Central Salford open day - come and have your say about the vision for the area, open to all who live and work in Central Salford - 8th September, 11am - 7pm, in front of Salford Art Gallery and Museum. Find out more at www.centralsalford.com
Public sector employers' recruitment fair - 13th September, 10am - 5pm - on the lawns in front of Salford Civic Centre, Swinton. Find out more at www.salford.gov.uk/recruitmentfair05

Community Involvement training courses

The Good Practice in Community Involvement project runs a number of training sessions and workshops that are open to all employees of partner organisations.

- 26th September, Questionnaire design, Broadwalk training centre (£30)
- 12th and 19th October, Facilitation Skills, venue to be confirmed (£100)
-26th October, Engaging Older People, Broadwalk training centre (£40)

To book a place, please contact Gail or Wendy on 0161 736 2398 (gail.aspinall@salford.gov.uk). More details

Recommended websites

www.salfordcvs.co.uk - a new-look website for Salford CVS

www.salford.gov.uk/leisure/tourism/photocompetition.htm - enter the "as seen IN Salford" photography competition

National news
In August, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister published an interim report on LSPs, evaluating progress to date. The evaluation shows that LSPs are making good progress in developing organisational structures and processes, but as yet there is little evidence to show that they are making a discernable difference. Some LSPs are starting to produce outcomes in terms of improvements in strategic capacity and community legitimacy.

The report highlights the shortage of resources compared to the policy agenda with which they are faced. There is a warning that partnerships could fail if they are overloaded with responsibilities. LSPs are playing a significant role in the development of community leadership and the attitude of local authorities is vital in carrying this forward.
http://www.odpm.gov.uk/stellent/groups/odpm_localgov/documents/page/odpm_locgov_039415.pdf
LSP research update

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